


no, it is an ever fixed axis

by akaiiko



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, References to Kuron / Clone!Shiro, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-20 13:45:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13718961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaiiko/pseuds/akaiiko
Summary: It doesn’t matter how many times the universe tears them apart. They will always find their way back.Eventually they will stop. They always stop. Killing him isn’t in their best interest yet. (Eventually, they will kill him.) All he has to do is endure. Let it happen. Bending instead of breaking. Stare into the middle distance. Bite his tongue so he doesn’t crack his teeth. Remember how grey eyes crinkled at the corners when he was holding back a smile. Bend, bend, bend—“Who are you?” the Druid asks. “Who are you to the Champion?”





	no, it is an ever fixed axis

**Author's Note:**

> for @koganeisms for sheithlentines 2018! enjoy the Patented Sheith Reunion™. it’s basically what i think we all wish would happen in s5.

Keith can chart the events that led him here the same way he used to chart constellations.

Here is where he almost sacrificed himself, here is where he reunited with his team, here is where he looked into the eyes of his closest friend and saw a stranger staring back. Here is where he confessed his suspicions to the Blades. Here is where they sent him to recover “from his trials and battle shock” on a Coalition planet. Here is where he overhears rumors of the Champion held two systems over in a Druidic testing facility.

Draw the lines, neat and clean, to map out exactly how he chased ghosts to the end of the known universe. Now he’s _here_ and _here_ is a prison cell that’s four paces by four paces. _Here_ is no backup and no chance of rescue. _Here_ is dying anonymous if he’s lucky.

And Keith’s charted all of this so he knows, in the way he knows so many things, that he’s long past lucky.

* * *

“What brought you here?” the Druid asks. Its’ voice is high and sharp. Its’ skin is mottled, and scaled, and Keith realizes in the space between seconds that it’s not full Galra. Another puzzle piece that he’s trying desperately to put together.

For now, they’re using knives. Or some approximation that he’s never encountered. Thin, hot edges press into his skin and slice clean. No resistance. It cauterizes as it goes, too. A blade built for torture, because there’s no point to something like this on a battlefield. They don’t want him to bleed out before he tells them everything.

The Druid leans close. Its breathing is sibilant, like how he imagines a snake would sound if it was panting in his ear, and he smells something sharp like ozone off its breath. “What brought you here, little spy? What did we have that you wanted?”

Once, when he was young, he’d gotten shoved off a dock. It was at the fourth foster home he’d been to in as many years. A local kid thought he was a jerk and shoved him off. The lake was deep. Keith couldn’t swim. Instinct kept him fighting for the surface. Reaching for anything that might keep him from drowning. Eventually his hands had found a half rotted buoy, and he’d pulled himself half on top of it with the strength of a dying man. Hours later, his foster father had to physically pry him off the buoy to get him back to dry land.

Keith thinks about that now. He thinks about it because that feeling _—_ that will to survive and that willingness to hold onto anything that might let him _—_ is why he’s here. Because he heard that the Champion, that _Shiro_ , was being held in this facility.

Part of him wants to call the thing in his gut that had pushed him to travel two systems over on a rumor hope. But he’s pragmatic. He’s captured and tortured. Remembering how it felt to grab onto rotting wood to stop from drowning. Pragmatic, he bites his tongue against the slide of that blade into his forearm and he silently names the thing in his gut for what it is. Desperation.

* * *

Time is relative in the facility. Days pass. Keith can count out blocks of time by guard rotations but not much else. Food rations aren’t regular. Half the time he’s hollow with hunger, world gone blurry at the edges and sharp at the focus points, before they bring another set of rations in. Experiments aren’t regular either. Sometimes they leave him long enough to heal. Most times they don’t.

It’d be easier to plan escape if there was a rhythm to things. That’s what they taught in the Blades. Find the rhythm, find the escape. If there’s no rhythm there’s no escape. Easy to be hopeless but instead he tries to be grateful for what he’s able to figure out.

The guards take him to different sectors for different experiments and inquisitions. It’s similar to all Galra architecture. Heavy, industrial metal walls. Endless corridors and low ceilinged rooms. Consistent, low level purple light. But he notices the cracks. Repairs that lack perfect edges, machines that take a half second too long to turn on, and a half dozen other things that show the age of the facility. These imperfections are his mental signposts. Every other part of the facility can be triangulated based on them and so he memorizes the halls, the rooms, the sectors. Builds a map that is not complete but is close enough. In the quiet hours, he runs the maze of the complex over and over in his mind, until he could move through it blind.

During his capture they stripped him of his weapons, his comms, and even his Blade suit. Anything that might be useful. Identifying where they took his things, or if they even kept his things, is an impossibility. One of the guards thinks to taunt him one day with how he’ll never get any of them back. Like Keith wasn’t already aware. When he escapes, he won’t be stupid enough to go back for what he’s lost. But it’s good to know they’ll expect him to try.

Maybe the hardest thing is figuring out that he came here chasing nothing. On the way to the base he’d had time to think about all the ways he would be disappointed. It would be another Champion, by now, because the arenas never cease to churn out victors and victims. Even if Shiro was captured, he wouldn’t be held in a small Druidic facility far from Zarkon’s central fleet. The Blades were right, he was experiencing battle shock from his near miss at Naxzela, and he’d imagined the stranger wearing Shiro’s face. Only when he’d been thinking all of these things, he’d been thinking that he’d have to deal with his disappointment while flying back to safety, not while trapped in a cell.

Keith doesn’t have absolute proof that Shiro is not here. Only he’s never seen Shiro, not once in all the time he’s been hauled through what feels like every inch of the facility. He’s never heard more rumors. And he’s spent enough time figuring out the edges of his new existence to know that this is the kind of experimental facility that houses no one important.

Emotionally, accepting that he’s been captured for no reason is difficult. Tactically, it frees him up. Any opportunity to escape can and should be taken. When he breaks out of here, he doesn’t have to focus on anything other than getting back to his ship, and getting the hell off this planet.

All of this is good but it’s not _enough_. The plan isn’t coming together fast enough. Resources are minimal. Keith knows he’s strong. But he’s also isolated, and starving, and tortured. Time is not on his side.

* * *

Sometimes he runs the memories over in his mind. Prods at them. Looking for weaknesses, looking for inconsistencies, looking for proof one way or the other that he’s crazy.

Everyone thought he was. Keith’s not sure how much Kolivan told the Paladins about his wide eyed ramblings. It must’ve been enough to excuse his temporary exile to a safezone planet. Somewhere in his comms, there are a few coded messages from his friends, saying they hope he’s back in fighting shape soon. Kolivan is protective, so maybe he just said it was battle shock. Make the reintegration easier, keep the alliance strong, and so on.

In his memories, he’s still shaking with adrenaline, on edge in the worst way, and he stumbles into the bridge of the Castle of Lions. They’ve already dealt with Lotor while he was busy doing debrief with the Blades. Shiro stands near Allura discussing holding arrangements. Keith goes for him, instinct driving him toward his one safe harbor, and there’s a break.

There’s a break. A moment as thin and sharp as the edge of a blade. On one side, Keith’s sure he’s about to find the safety he so desperately needs in Shiro’s arms. On the other, Keith’s realizing that the grey eyes scanning his body dispassionately are not Shiro’s. That other side is cold. Made up of a thousand small moments that reassemble into a new and awful shape. Keith thinks of arguments, of reprimands, of how Shiro _let him go_. There’s a break, and then there’s a stranger wearing Shiro’s face.

Keith knows there are faults. Logic points out that the only time he’s seen Shiro since Naxzela was that one lynchpin moment. That it could have been adrenaline and disassociation. That there are a thousand more reasonable explanations. Keith trusts his gut.

* * *

Purple welts his skin and he’s given up trying to keep his feet under him. The guards will drag him to his cell if he stays upright or not. Radiating agony from the Druid’s quintessence bolts makes the decision for him. Not. Not. _Not_.

Bile’s burning the back of his throat and he wonders if they’d stop for him to puke. He doesn’t want to puke in his cell. No one will clean it. The smell will fill the whole space. Somehow these are the things he thinks about now, because they are small enough for him to grasp onto.

They do stop. One of them snarls, pulls his arm up so hard he thinks it might pop out of the socket. That’s okay. Keith knows how to reset his joints. More important is getting out the acid that’s been eating at him and he does.

Keith’s gasping in the aftermath.

The guard, the one wrenching his arm, yanks him around the puddle of his own vomit. Instinct has his head snapping up and his feet catching under him. Minimize the damage. Stay in fighting shape.

On his left, there’s another cell. Bigger than his. With an actual cot. There’s a human in there. Looking at him. Grey eyes above a broad white scar. Full lips forming the syllables of his name. Hands curling into fists that slam against the shields that form the cell doors. Desperation. Fury. Death promised in every line of that warrior’s frame.

* * *

Later he looks down at his hands, still streaked with the aftermath of quintessence, and thinks it must have been a hallucination because _Shiro isn’t here_. Keith’s been holding onto small things to stay sane. Maybe they’ve been too small. Maybe he’s been thinking too much about Shiro. Or maybe it was always a losing battle.

* * *

 

“Who are you?” the Druid hisses. Claws dig into his cheeks as the Druid tips his head this way and that. This is a new question. Always it has been _what are you_. Because he is a thing to them. Not a person. More interesting for how his Galra blood interacts with quintessence and how he withstands pain than for where he might’ve come from.

This is a new question. A dangerous question. So Keith bites his tongue and stares mutinously into the middle distance.

Galra assume when someone breaks, they break all the way down, and they think that because he’ll die on his knees he’ll die weak. That’s not how this works. Keith might be isolated, and starving, and tortured, but he’s not broken.

Hissing with disgust, the Druid pushes him back and releases him. A faint throb starts at the base of his skull from bouncing against the metal backboard. “You will tell, halfbreed.”

No, he won’t. It doesn’t matter how they torture him. Out here, they don’t have the fancy tech that lets them root around in his memories.

Back when he joined the Blades, Regris told him about torture and said that it wasn’t always so bad. Keith had blinked at him. Regris laughed. Rough, grating, like a rusted engine trying to start up. _You bend_ , he said. _It happens to someone else. That’s the trick. You bend. You don’t break._ Keith hadn’t meant to but he committed that to memory.

The Druid floods his system with quintessence. Keith hears himself screaming until his vocal chords rip. Sweat soaked, tear streaked, but it’s all just bodily reaction. Not real.

Eventually they will stop. They always stop. Killing him isn’t in their best interest yet. (Eventually, they will kill him.) All he has to do is endure. Let it happen. Bending instead of breaking. Stare into the middle distance. Bite his tongue so he doesn’t crack his teeth. Remember how grey eyes crinkled at the corners when he was holding back a smile. Bend, bend, bend—

“Who are you?” the Druid asks. “Who are you to the Champion?”

“Who?” It’s the first word he’s said during their sessions. Back in the beginning, he’d been tempted to let out a stream of curses. Give them a crash course in Earth slang. Only that had meant staying in his body and he didn’t want to stay. Now he says it again, the sound raw and wet and awful, “Who?”

The Druid blinks its’ great golden eyes at him. This one is full Galra, he knows, with ears like a Rottweiler and fangs half an inch long. It’s crueler than some of the others as well. “The Champion,” it says. The sound of its voice is almost a purr and that is worse than when it howls. “The Black Paladin. The Traitor.” It gets closer to him and the quintessence dances between its’ fingers without touching him. A promise of what’s to come. “Shirogane.”

Quintessence flares along him. It burns into his bones. Keith blacks out.

* * *

Instinct tells him to go bolt upright. Get his feet under him. Hand on a weapon. Assess the situation, the threat, the plan of attack.

Keith rolls onto his side and gags on nothing. By now he’s used to hurting, but even so, this is a new hurt. Something that starts in his marrow and works its way out. Blinking doesn’t remove the filmy edge to his vision but it solidifies basic shapes. Enough to know that he’s alone in his cell.

Getting his hands under him, he pushes to his knees and grits his teeth against the answering surge of nausea. Takes a minute but the feeling passes. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. Keith’s strong.

Letting himself settle back against a wall, he eyes the purple light of the shields. No telling how long it’s been since they threw him in here. Probably a few hours, at least, maybe more. Do they know, he wonders, what they’ve just let slip? Have they taken countermeasures? Or are they too arrogant? Doesn’t matter. That’s what he decides, when he watches the guard rotation happen a few tics later. It doesn’t matter. Either way his plan is the same. Because somewhere in this facility they’ve got the Champion.

Somewhere they’ve got _Shiro_.

* * *

They leave him alone for six guard shifts. Midway through the seventh, five guards arrive to escort him to his next meeting with the Druids, which is two more than he usually merits.

Keith’s recovered enough—or stubborn enough—to ignore the ache in his bones. He keeps his feet under him even with the double time march. That takes up too much of his concentration though. Means he doesn’t realize they’re going into a new sector until they’re already a half dozen hallways from his cell.

Screaming starts up behind them. Then klaxon alarms. Then gunfire.

Mostly, he feels like this should merit his guards doing something other than picking up their pace. Doesn’t matter how quick his legs move, they’re mostly dragging him, because he’s too short to compensate for their long strides. Galran commands are spitting through their comms. After months with the Blades he knows enough.

_Take the prisoner— Threat level six— Attack— Do not engage—_

Static.

Either they’re under attack, or one of the prisoner’s broke free. Keith’s spent enough time calculating the odds to know that some cavalry showing up to save the day isn’t going to happen. Not for a shoddy outpost barely marked on half the maps.

It’d be easy to hope it’s Shiro coming. Feels like he should know better though. Because that’s too easy. Things have never been easy for them.

Options are limited with his hands bound. Limited isn’t impossible. Dropping into a fighter’s crouch, Keith hooks one of the guard’s knees and watches the man crumple. Headbutts another in the stomach and winces against the resulting ache. Two down, trying to get to their feet, and if he could just get one of their guns—

Purple slices clean through the guard’s neck. Keith scrambles back, wide eyed, as the Galran soldier collapses to the floor.

Even in shock he’s a fighter first. Assesses the danger in an instant. One combatant, with an arm lit fingertips to bicep in a deadly glow, already going after the two downed guards. It seems like a tactical error and it would be if he weren’t so damned fast. There’s a reason they called him Champion, once.

* * *

In the aftermath, he charts this moment the same way he used to chart stars.

Klaxons blare in the distance, every inch of him aches, and there’s the scent of burnt meat that’s probably not going to leave his nose for days. Still he feels one side of his mouth kick up in a smile. “Shiro,” he breathes. Already on his knees so maybe it’s not so bad that it comes out like a prayer.

Shiro goes down on his knees too. The arm deactivates, almost like an afterthought, but it’s still warm when it cups Keith’s cheek. Familiar hands cradle his head. Hold him in place as Shiro leans down till their foreheads touch. Both of them are panting, breath mingling, and it’s good in a way Keith will never be able to articulate.

“Keith,” Shiro says. And he sounds so grateful, so desperately grateful, that it’s a kind of prayer too.

They’re both trembling. Keith wants to blink, to close his eyes, to let himself rest for the first time in months. Only he can’t. Because he’s sure that if he closes his eyes then Shiro will disappear and he can’t, he can’t, he _can’t_.

Maybe Shiro can’t, either, because on of his hands slips down to cup the back of Keith’s neck and he tugs. Like earthbound comets they fall into one another. Noses bump, and Keith’s teeth catch on Shiro’s upper lip, but they’re kissing. Figuring out how to fit into one another. Hands gentle in contrast to the way they’re trying to bite and lick into each other’s mouth. In contrast to the violence around them. In contrast to the way that the universe wants them to be soldiers.

When they pull apart, they don’t really, still breathing the same air. “You’re here,” Shiro says. There’s this look in his eyes, the same look he always gets when Keith’s done something incredible, and there’s a soft tilt to his mouth that is so tender it aches. “You’re _here_ , Keith.”


End file.
